Operation Yellow Star / Black Thursday

by Maurice Rajsfus, Phyllis Aronoff (Translator), Mike Mitchell (Translator)

Overview

Two books by Maurice Rajsfus, a French activist and former investigative journalist for Le Monde, who shares his research and personal recollections in order to shed new light on France's role in the Holocaust.

In the first volume, "Operation Yellow Star," Rajsfus meticulously analyzes archival documents, demonstrating the extent of police collaboration with the Vichy regime and how it facilitated the persecution, deportation, and ultimately the death of hundreds of thousands of Jews. Examining long-unseen arrest records and transcripts, Rajsfus seeks to understand how and why many average French citizens resisted Nazi occupation while others were willingly complicit. In the second book, "Black Thursday," Rajsfus recounts his own experiences of July 16, 1942, when he and his family were arrested as part of the Vel’ d'Hiv roundup, the largest ever in France, of 13,000 Jews. While most of those detained during the two-day sweep eventually died in Auschwitz, the author survived and has spent the rest of his life grappling with his country's betrayal. Together, the two volumes by Rajsfus offer a damning exposé of the bureaucracy of genocide, laying bare how cultural bias, political self-interest, and the influence of right-wing media led to the implementation of the Yellow Star as a segregationist device and determined France’s culpability in the Holocaust.

Maurice Rajsfus is the author of thirty books and from 1994–2012 he created and circulated "Que fait la police," a "Cop Watch" bulletin detailing human rights abuses. He lives in Paris with his wife, sons and grandchildren.

Phyllis Aronoff has won the Jewish Literary Award for translation and the translation prize from the Quebec Writers' Federation. She was president of the Literary Translators' Association of Canada and from 2007–2015 represented translators on the Public Lending Right Commission of Canada.

Mike Mitchell (b. 1941) is an award-winning translator of French and German who has been active as a translator for over thirty years. In 2012 the Austrian Ministry of Education, Art and Culture awarded him a lifetime achievement award as a translator of literary works. He lives in Scotland.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780997818406
Publisher:	DoppelHouse Press
Publication date:	07/04/2017
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.60(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Maurice Rajsfus (1928–2020) was an author and activist who worked as an investigative journalist at multiple French outlets, including at Le Monde. Of his many books, many dealt with the Vichy regime and its legacy in French police culture, focusing on police violence against immigrants and people of color. He also wrote about Drancy concentration camp and Israel-Palestine, as well as co-authoring several illustrated books about history. In 1990, Rajsfus and several friends founded “Ras l’Front,” the anti-racist association of far-left-wing organizations extremely active in the 1990s against the rise of Le Pen and fascist/nationalist parties in France. They worked together and promoted leftist causes through a monthly publication as well as actions. He served as chairman from 1991–1999. From 1994–2012 Rajsfus created and circulated Que fait la police?, a “Cop Watch” bulletin with selections from his archive of over 40,000 press clippings detailing human rights abuses by French police. His books about the Vél d’Hiv raid and his experiences during WWII have been brought together to form the basis of a YA comic (Tartamudo editions) as well as a play written and directed by Philippe Ogouz, which was then adapted for film in 2010, Souvenirs d’un vieil enfant: La rafle du Vel’ d’Hiv (Memories of an Old Child: The Roundup of the Vel’ d’Hiv), directed by Alain Guesnier. Maurice Rajsfus is survived by two sons as well as several grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Read more about Rajsfus and his legacy at the link posted in our tribute.

Mike Mitchell (b. 1941) is an award-winning translator of French and German who has been active as a translator for over thirty years. He is the recipient of the Schlegel-Tieck Prize for translations of German works published in Britain, has won the British Comparative Literature Association translation competition three times, and has been shortlisted for many awards including the French-American Translation Prize, the Weidenfeld prize, the Aristeion prize, the Kurt Wolff prize, and the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger. In 2012 the Austrian Ministry of Education, Art and Culture awarded him a lifetime achievement award as a translator of literary works. He lives in Scotland.

Phyllis Aronoff (b. 1945) has won the Jewish Literary Award for translation and the translation prize from the Quebec Writers' Federation. She was president of the Literary Translators' Association of Canada and from 2007–2015 represented translators on the Public Lending Right Commission of Canada.

Table of Contents

Author's Preface to the English Edition

Book One - Operation Yellow Star
Note
Honor and Discipline
In the Service of Immoral Laws
The Stages of Humiliation
Toward the Yellow Star
A Little History
The Preliminaries
Preparations
Hunting Them Down
The Requests for Special Dispensation
Non-Jews Wearing the Badge
A Compliant Press
Toward Liberation
The Red Line

Book Two - Black Thursday: The Round-up of July 16, 1942

Preface

Part One
Twelve Hours of Anxiety

[untitled chapters 1-15]

Part Two: No Witnesses, No Crime!
Local Amnesia
The Police Have Forgotten
The Bus Drivers Did Their Job
Vincennes City Hall Has No Information
What About the Churches?
My City Has Lost Its Memory

Part Three: Survivor of the Absurd
Memories, a User’s Guide
Lost Children...

Appendix - Interview with Maurice Rajsfus

What People are Saying About This

Michel Warschawski

Maurice Rajsfus is not only a historian of the raid: he lived it in his flesh, saw it with his own eyes, and if he had not had the audacity and ingenuity of a Parisian street urchin, son of immigrant Polish Jews that he was, would have suffered the same fate as his parents, deported and assassinated in Auschwitz. Without making improper comparisons, the roundup of the Vél d’Hiv is a very current topic. Maurice Rajsfus’ narrative can help us to grasp both the logic and the implications of a policy of exclusion of populations and communities who, because of their ethnic, national or religious origin, are not protected by the State of which they are a part.

Editorial Reviews

If [Rajsfus] still wishes to recall how scrupulously — and even with zeal — the French police applied Nazi orders, he also wants to warn us against certain xenophobic or discriminatory speech still heard recently that could lead to behavior of that bygone age.
– Ekaitza

Well researched and deeply personal, the accounts are powerful in their detail.
– San Francisco Book Review

Maurice Rajsfus is not only a historian of the raid: he lived it in his flesh, saw it with his own eyes, and if he had not had the audacity and ingenuity of a Parisian street urchin, son of immigrant Polish Jews that he was, would have suffered the same fate as his parents, deported and assassinated in Auschwitz. Without making improper comparisons, the roundup of the Vél d’Hiv is a very current topic. Maurice Rajsfus’ narrative can help us to grasp both the logic and the implications of a policy of exclusion of populations and communities who, because of their ethnic, national or religious origin, are not protected by the State of which they are a part.
– Michel Warschawski, author of On the Border, winner of Le Prix des Amis du Monde Diplomatique (2002)

Maurice Rajsfus has devoted his life to denouncing and combating racism, fascism, intolerance, and police brutality, while putting in his texts a good dose of caustic irony.
– Jakilea, Basque Human Rights Defense League

An unsparing indictment of Paris police during the Nazi occupation.… The author’s memory of July 16 is harrowing.… Besides commemorating his family’s murder, Rajsfus raises awareness about how “the enemies of human rights are once more gaining ground,” spouting xenophobia that is easily transferable to any minority group. A heartfelt, timely plea to remember past atrocities.
– Kirkus Reviews

Adept reporting and personal experience make for a gripping read… While each book is strong enough to stand on its own, Operation Yellow Star and Black Thursday together make an unusual, important, credibly researched, and skillfully written contribution to Holocaust literature.
– Susan Waggoner, Foreword Reviews

Well documented … essential for understanding and above all not forgetting. To this day there are still no pictures of the days of horror at the Velodrome d’Hiver.
– Clara Magazine

From the Publisher

Adept reporting and personal experience make for a gripping read… While each book is strong enough to stand on its own, Operation Yellow Star and Black Thursday together make an unusual, important, credibly researched, and skillfully written contribution to Holocaust literature.

Foreword Reviews - Susan Waggoner

Maurice Rajsfus has devoted his life to denouncing and combating racism, fascism, intolerance, and police brutality, while putting in his texts a good dose of caustic irony.

Basque Human Rights Defense League - Jakilea

Through his sobering, exhaustive research Rajsfus chronicles the arrests, harassment, and deportations of Jews [in France]…. Rajsfus’ eyewitness, unblinking account of the events in Vichy France is a journalistic, yet passionately written j’accuse against the French collaborators and those who want to erase the [era’s] devastating atrocities.

Lew Whittington

Maurice Rajsfus is not only a historian of the raid: he lived it in his flesh, saw it with his own eyes, and if he had not had the audacity and ingenuity of a Parisian street urchin, son of immigrant Polish Jews that he was, would have suffered the same fate as his parents, deported and assassinated in Auschwitz. Without making improper comparisons, the roundup of the Vél d’Hiv is a very current topic. Maurice Rajsfus’ narrative can help us to grasp both the logic and the implications of a policy of exclusion of populations and communities who, because of their ethnic, national or religious origin, are not protected by the State of which they are a part.

Michel Warschawski

An interesting view into the field of investigative journalism as we follow the author’s steps to find more information at the Archives de la Préfecture de Police de Paris [which] exposes the reluctance of the French police to come to terms with its own past. He also emphasizes the various problems faced by researchers studying the era in terms of access to archival material. This investigation touches on numerous issues of memory such as the role of bystanders and their apparent indifference, not only at the time of the events, but also as a memory of shameful collaboration.

Patrick Fournier

Well researched and deeply personal, the accounts are powerful in their detail.

San Francisco Book Review

If [Rajsfus] still wishes to recall how scrupulously — and even with zeal — the French police applied Nazi orders, he also wants to warn us against certain xenophobic or discriminatory speech still heard recently that could lead to behavior of that bygone age.

Ekaitza

Well documented … essential for understanding and above all not forgetting. To this day there are still no pictures of the days of horror at the Velodrome d’Hiver.

Clara Magazine

2017-04-10
An unsparing indictment of Paris police during the Nazi occupation.On July 16, 1942, 14-year-old Rajsfus was among thousands of Jews rounded up in Paris in compliance with German orders. Most were interned and deported, never to return, but he was fortunate enough to be released. In honor of his entire family, who were killed by Nazis, the author emotionally recalls that Black Thursday, which forms half of this book; he precedes it with Operation Yellow Star, based on newspaper reports and official papers, documenting the eagerness of French policemen "to take part in all repressive operations." Loyal to the Vichy government, Rajsfus asserts, "the police got behind the racist ideology and imposed the laws that were those of a totalitarian state." One of the major laws mandated that all Jews wear a yellow star, making them easily identifiable and subject to accusation, detention, and arrest. Sympathizers who took up the star themselves, as an expression of solidarity, were arrested, too. A few prominent cultural figures and wives of government loyalists were given exemptions, Rajsfus discovered, but when the writer Colette asked for an exemption for her Jewish husband, she was denied. The author's memory of July 16 is harrowing: the family was awakened before 5 a.m. and told to pack in five minutes. Although arrests throughout Paris had been occurring for more than a year, still the family was surprised. Flanked by police, they were taken to a squalid house that served as a makeshift prison. Suddenly, an officer announced that all children 14 or older would be released if their parents agreed, and Rajsfus and his older sister found themselves alone on the street. They returned to their apartment, where, months later, they received a note from their father: "We are leaving for Germany." Besides commemorating his family's murder, Rajsfus raises awareness about how "the enemies of human rights are once more gaining ground," spouting xenophobia that is easily transferable to any minority group. A heartfelt, timely plea to remember past atrocities.

Kirkus Reviews